On the Influence of Representation Type and Gender on Recognition Tasks of Program Comprehension

RÉSUMÉ L’objectif de la maintenance logicielle est d’améliorer les logiciels existants en préservant leur intégrité. La maintenance peut représenter jusqu’à 60% du budget d’un logiciel. Ainsi, améliorer la maintenabilité des logiciels est bénéfique aussi bien pour les fournisseurs que les utilisateurs de logiciels. Les développeurs de logiciels consacrent un effort considérable à la compréhension des programmes, qui est une étape primordiale à la maintenance logicielle. Nous faisons l’hypothèque que le genre des développeurs de logiciels et le type de représentation peut affecter leur effort et leur efficacité. Ces facteurs doivent être considérés et minutieusement analysés dans la mesure où ils peuvent cacher certains effets significatifs pouvant être identifiés en analysant le processus de compréhension. Dans cette thèse, nous nous inspirons de l’utilisation de l’occulomètre pour l’étude du processus cognitif lors de la résolution des problèmes. Nous avons effectué une étude fonctionnelle pour évaluer tous les travaux de recherche faisant usage de l’occulomètre en génie logiciel. Les résultats obtenus nous ont motivé à utiliser l’occulomètre pour effectuer un ensemble d’études afin analyser l’effet de deux facteurs importants sur la compréhension des programmes : le type de représentation (textuelle ou graphique) et le genre du développeur. Afin de comprendre comment les différents types de représentations et le genre influencent les stratégies de visualisation, nous avons étudié la différence de stratégie entre développeurs. Les résultats obtenus montrent que, comparé à une représentation graphique, la représentation sous forme de texte structuré aide mieux le développeur dans son processus cognitif lors de la compréhension des programmes de petite taille. Ainsi, la représentation textuelle requiert moins de temps et d’effort aux participants. Par contre, la représentation graphique est celle préférée par les développeurs. Nos résultats montrent que la structure topologique de la représentation graphique aide les développeurs à mémoriser l’emplacement des éléments et à retrouver plus rapidement les éléments pertinents comparé à la représentation textuelle. En plus, la structure hiérarchique de la représentation graphique guide les développeurs à suivre une stratégie de visualisation spécifique. Nous avons observé que les femmes et les hommes ont des stratégies de visualisation différentes lors de la lecture du code ou de la mémorisation des noms des identificateurs. Les femmes ont tendance à inspecter minutieusement toutes les options afin de procéder à l’élimination de la mauvaise réponse. Au contraire, les hommes ont tendance à inspecter brièvement certaines réponses. Pendant que les femmes consacrent plus de temps à analyser chaque type d’entité l’un après l’autre, les hommes alternent leur attention entre différents type d’entité.----------ABSTRACT The purpose of software maintenance is to correct and enhance an existing software system while preserving its integrity. Software maintenance can cost more than 60% of the budget of a software system, thus improving the maintainability of software is important for both the software industry and its customers. Program comprehension is the initial step of software maintenance that requires the major amount of maintenance’s time and effort. We conjuncture that developers’ gender and the type of representations that developers utilize to perform program comprehension impact their efficiency and effectiveness. These factors must be considered and carefully studied, because they may hide some significant effects to be found by analyzing the comprehension process. In this dissertation, inspired by the literature on the usefulness of eye-trackers to study the cognitive process involved in problem solving activities, we perform a mapping study and evaluate all research relevant to the use of eye-tracking technique in software engineering. The results motivate us to perform a set of eye-tracking studies to analyze the impact of two important factors on program comprehension: representation type (textual vs. graphical) and developers’ gender. Moreover, we investigate and compare viewing strategies variability amongst developers to understand how the representation type and gender differences influence viewing strategies. Overall, our results indicate that structured text provides more cognitive support for developers while performing program comprehension with small systems compared to a graphical representation. Developers spend less time and effort working with textual representations. However, developers mostly preferred to use graphical representations and our results confirm that the topological structure of graphical representations helps developers to memorize the location of the elements and to find the relevant ones faster in comparison with textual representation. Moreover, the hierarchical structure of the representation guides developers to follow specific viewing strategies while working with representations. Regarding the impact of gender, our results emphasize that male and female developers exploit different viewing strategies while reading source code or recalling the names of identifiers. Female developers seem to carefully weigh all options and rule out wrong answers, while male developers seem to quickly set their minds on some answers and move forward. Moreover, female developers spend more time on each source code entity and analyze it before going to the next one. In contrast, male developers utilize several attention switching strategies between different source code entities

A review and assessment of novice learning tools for problem solving and program development

There is a great demand for the development of novice learning tools to supplement classroom instruction in the areas of problem solving and program development. Research in the area of pedagogy, the psychology of programming, human-computer interaction, and cognition have provided valuable input to the development of new methodologies, paradigms, programming languages, and novice learning tools to answer this demand. Based on the cognitive needs of novices, it is possible to postulate a set of characteristics that should comprise the components an effective novice-learning tool. This thesis will discover these characteristics and provide recommendations for the development of new learning tools. This will be accomplished with a review of the challenges that novices face, an in-depth discussion on modem learning tools and the challenges that they address, and the identification and discussion of the vital characteristics that constitute an effective learning tool based on these tools and personal ideas

Dream Home Multimedia Advertising

Currently, means of presenting the selling house are by on site visits. After the emergence of the computer graphics, software technologies, Internet, and interactive multimedia tools, many developer companies have ventured in the e-business to show to the consumers the line of house, which they are selling. The objective of this project is to develop a prototype as the basis of inviting the audience to interactively participate in the choosing their desired house by working with a virtual interior view of each segments of the house, 360 degree image of each rooms in the house, the interactive location map of the house, considering the price range and the type of the house. The scope of study of this project will be focused on the customer's identifications on choosing the selling house, multimedia interactive advertising application, in which the product should meet the human-computer interaction, in this case, customers-application friendliness. In this project, System Development Life Cycle (SDLC) Methodology is used since it covers all the phase in developing the interactive advertising application, including the testing phase, which customers will use the testing application in order to measure the user friendliness of the application. The "score" or the findings of the project are determined from the customers' satisfaction and understanding during using the testing or prototype of the application. Most of the user satisfied with the application due to the reasons that they do not have to go to the advertised house's location, the application itself have already help them in decision making, and the application includes all the data that customers might need to know

Regulation by Software

Software is neither law nor architecture. It is its own modality of regulation. This Note builds on Larry Lessig’s famous formulation that “code is law” to argue that Lessig was wrong to equate computer software with physical architecture. Although software resembles both law and architecture in its power to constrain behavior, it has features that distinguish it from both. The Note identifies four relevant attributes of software: It is ruleish, potentially nontransparent, impossible to ignore, and vulnerable to sudden failure. By assessing the impact of these characteristics in a given context, one can decide whether software is a good or a bad choice to solve a regulatory problem. Part I situates software within Lessig’s theory of different and complementary modalities of regulation that constrain individuals. In Code, he postulates four such modalities: law, social norms, markets, and physical architecture. He then argues that software is a subspecies of physical architecture as a modality. I argue instead that three basic characteristics of software establish it as a distinct modality that should not be conflated with any of the others: First, software is automated. Once set in motion by a programmer, a computer program makes its determinations mechanically, without further human intervention. Second, software is immediate. Rather than relying on sanctions imposed after the fact to enforce its rules, it simply prevents the forbidden behavior from occurring. Third, software is plastic. Programmers can implement almost any system they can imagine and describe precisely. Software is like physical architecture and unlike law in being automated and immediate. However, plasticity is more characteristic of legal systems than of architectural ones. Software’s plasticity interacts with its automation and its immediacy to produce consequences that set it apart from both law and physical architecture. In Part II, I turn to these distinctive consequences. There are four recurring and predictable patterns present in any regulation by software: First, along the traditional continuum between rules and standards, software lies at the extreme rule-bound end. Second, software can regulate without transparency. Frequently, those regulated by software may have no reasonable way to determine the overall shape of the line between prohibited and permitted behavior. Third, software rules cannot be ignored. Parties facing a decision made by software can, at best, take steps to undo what software has wrought. Fourth, software is more fragile than other systems of regulation. Hackers can turn its plasticity against it, and its automated operation means that unintended consequences are shielded from human review. Part III applies this analysis to two case studies. It predicts that software is a good way to manage negotiations and transactions in online marketplaces such as online auction sites and electronic stock exchanges. On the other hand, it predicts several pitfalls for the use of software to restrict the distribution of digital media

On-Demand Collaboration in Programming

In programming, on-demand assistance occurs when developers seek support for their tasks as needed. Traditionally, this collaboration happens within teams and organizations in which people are familiar with the context of requests and tasks. More recently, this type of collaboration has become ubiquitous outside of teams and organizations, due to the success of paid online crowdsourcing marketplaces (e.g., Upwork) and free online question-answering websites (e.g., Stack Overflow). Thousands of requests are posted on these platforms on a daily basis, and many of them are not addressed in a timely manner for a variety of reasons, including requests that often lack sufficient context and access to relevant artifacts. In consequence, on-demand collaboration often results in suboptimal productivity and unsatisfactory user experiences. This dissertation includes three main parts: First, I explored the challenges developers face when requesting help from or providing assistance to others on demand. I have found seven common types of requests (e.g., seeking code examples) that developers use in various projects when an on-demand agent is available. Compared to studying existing supporting systems, I suggest eight key system features to enable more effective on-demand remote assistance for developers. Second, driven by these findings, I designed and developed two systems: 1) CodeOn, a system that enables more effective task hand-offs (e.g., rich context capturing) between end-user developers and remote helpers than exciting synchronous support systems by allowing asynchronous responses to on-demand requests; and 2) CoCapture, a system that enables interface designers to easily create and then accurately describe UI behavior mockups, including changes they want to propose or questions they want to ask about an aspect of the existing UI. Third, beyond software development assistance, I also studied intelligent assistance for embedded system development (e.g., Arduino) and revealed six challenges (e.g., communication setup remains tedious) that developers have during on-demand collaboration. Through an imaginary study, I propose four design implications to help develop future support systems with embedded system development. This thesis envisions a future in which developers in all kinds of domains can effortlessly make context-rich, on-demand requests at any stage of their development processes, and qualified agents (machine or human) can quickly be notified and orchestrate their efforts to promptly respond to the requests.PHDInformationUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/166144/1/yanchenm_1.pd